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City glows anew

Crowds spend more cautiously this year at Nights of Lights celebration

People crowd in to the Plaza de la Constitucion to see the 16th Annual Nights of Lights ceremony Saturday night. By DARON DEAN, daron.dean@staugustine.com

By JENNIFER EDWARDS

jennifer.edwards@staugustine.com

Swing music, throngs of people and colored lights surrounded Robert and Mary Kate Gagliardi of St. Augustine during Nights of Light Saturday.

The couple, on the Plaza de la Constitucion with their three daughters, loves to hear the bands and see downtown blaze with Christmas lights each year, they said.

And their daughter Emily Gagliardi, 8, loves to search out the biggest present under the public Christmas tree so she can sit on it.

"I did notice (the biggest one) was a little smaller this year," mom Mary Kate Gagliardi said. "I guess the economy is that bad."

Though Gagliardi was joking, the vendors selling their wares during the event agreed that sales were down.

"There's a lot of action and traffic," said Wendy Newell, who co-owns Pigskins and Ponytails with business partner Sarah Bress. The two sell game-day apparel.

It was not known at press time how many attended the event.

"There is buying, but it's not a lot," Newell said. "The economy really is affecting even this. It's the state of the Union right now."

St. Augustine Police Sgt. Mike Etheridge said the crowd was much larger this year than last.

Other vendors said that people were buying -- just not their bigger-ticket items.

"Everything has to be $5 or less," Diawara "Abu" Boufoune, who was selling African jewelry and clothing at the event, said. "If it's $20 or $30, they have to think about it."

Some items were popular with the crowd, though. Adults and children donned neon-light necklaces and glasses or twirled neon toys.

And cups of cocoa and cider brushed the palms of many of those waiting for former St. Augustine mayor John D. Bailey Jr. to flip the switch and turn on the Christmas lights, which will burn through Jan. 31.

Abigail Ward, 12, a Cathedral Parish School student, was selling many of the necklaces festivity-goers were wearing.

She said the necklaces were popular, but that was because they cost $1.

"With the big crowds, we haven't been having people buying cookbooks or ornaments," she said.

Attendees weren't willing to pay $20 or $25, so organizers "moved to glow sticks," she said.

And, she said, "everybody's buying the food," which was priced at $1 to $3.

At least one jewelry vendor said her average sale wasn't bad -- about $40 -- but she said the economy was affecting her business in other ways.

Adrian Degiosafatto of Electric Banana Studio said that it's harder to make the jewelry she sells.

She makes it from recycled and vintage items, like lasagna pans and older gold and silver pieces.

But now, "It's hard to find good estate silver because everyone cashed it in," she said.

The Gagliardis said it was something free that got them to St. Augustine and the Saturday night event.

Robert Gagliardi recalls how, when he visited the city on vacation from his then-home in Upstate New York, a shop owner gave him a postcard depicting the event.

"He just gave it to me," he said. "Up north, you don't get anything for free."

He and his wife returned here, attended the event and decided to relocate because they liked the event and the city so much.